Dead Meat | Day 5

by Clausen, Nick

  “How long till we’re there?” Dan asks.

  “Fifteen minutes, tops,” William says.

  “What do we do if there’s already chaos when we get there?” Dorte asks.

  “Let’s cross that bridge if we have to,” William says.

  “I think it might be a good idea to have some sort of game plan,” Dan interjects—surprising himself by speaking up. “I mean … just so we don’t end up getting a surprise.”

  William looks at him briefly in the mirror. “The thing is, we have no idea what to expect. Hard to plan for something you don’t know.”

  “No, but if we assume Haderslev will be about as badly hit as Aarhus was,” Dan’s father asserts, “then we might have to abandon the idea of finding this pilot guy. It might be wiser to just pass right by and keep going south. We could drive to Germany, or maybe—”

  “Hold on a minute,” William says, turning up the radio, which has been going on low volume.

  A calm but assertive female voice is speaking.

  “… which means that all borders will be closed indefinitely as of six o’clock this morning. This goes for all traffic, both in and out of the country, including but not exclusive to airlines, ships and cars. All neighboring countries have been asked to help reinforce this border blockade, and military personnel is already stationed at all airports, harbors and land border crossings. I repeat that all attempts to leave Denmark will be met with deadly force. The situation is critical, and the government asks for all citizens to fulfill their civic duties and obey the rules set out in this emergency protocol. Thank you.” A short pause, then a brief melody plays, and the voice starts speaking again. “This is an urgent message from the Danish government addressed to all citizens. Please pay close attention to the following …”

  “Christ on the can,” Dan’s father whispers. “They’re finally doing it. They’re shutting the whole place down.”

  “About damn time,” William mutters. “Should’ve done it two days ago. I bet you it’s too late now.”

  “You think any of the dead people reached the border already?” Dorte asks, leaning forward. “I mean, they’re on foot, and there’s at least seventy-five miles from here to Germany, which is the only land border.”

  “It can spread a lot faster than by foot,” William says grimly, darting her a significant look in the mirror. “Like if someone infected but not dead yet decides to make a run for it.”

  Dorte sinks back in her seat. Dan notices her face grow pale.

  “Luckily, there’s only about forty miles of border they need to close down and defend,” Dan’s father says. “That should be possible, given that none of the infected have already crossed it, of course. Good thing Denmark is a peninsula, right?”

  “Then what about the several hundred miles of coastline?” William asks.

  Dan’s father looks at him. “You think they can swim?”

  “I don’t know. But I think they can get aboard ships. And planes. And right now, I’ll bet you thousands of people are scrambling to get out of the country, just like we are. What are the odds that none of them are harboring a zombie? Or someone bringing along an infected loved one? Or a person hiding a scratch? I mean, come on. It only takes one little mistake, and this thing will turn into a pandemic.”

  A long pause follows inside the car, where they all exchange glances. Dan gets the feeling that everyone is suddenly suspecting the others of hiding something.

  He decides to break the unpleasant silence. “If they’ve shut down the airports, do you still think we can fly out of the country?”

  William shrugs. “I still think it’s our best bet. It’s a lot harder for them to patrol the skies than the roads, so if we can just get airborne, then at least we have a chance.”

  FOURTEEN

  Josefine is gently pulled from what feels like half a dream, half a memory, as someone touches her knee.

  She was back at the facility on the day her father was admitted. That was the day it finally dawned on her how sick he’d turned, how little of his old self was left. Her mother couldn’t bear having him in the house anymore, but she probably would’ve gone on if Josefine’s father hadn’t insisted in moving to the facility himself in one of his still-rarer moments of clarity.

  Josefine remembers tears forming in her eyes as they’re about to leave, and when her father noticed, he looked at her with a frown which Josefine first took to be a sign that he was gone again. But when he spoke, she realized he was more there than he’d ever been.

  “Why are you crying, Josie?”

  “I … it’s just … seeing you here, Daddy.”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  He held out his hand, and Josefine placed her own in it. Even at the age of almost seventy, his hand was nearly double the size of hers. It was warm, too, as it squeezed hers.

  “Seriously, Josie. I don’t want you to cry. It’s very important that you stay strong, okay?”

  “Okay,” she told him, wiping her eyes obediently, feeling like a little girl. “I’ll try, but I’m not sure I can help it. I’m not strong like you.”

  “Sure you are. You’re my daughter, aren’t you?”

  There’s a brush at her knee, shaking the dream.

  That meeting is one of Josefine’s fondest memories, and she doesn’t want to let go of it, not now, not until she’s relived it once more. Her father speaks again.

  “It’s always—”

  Then, there’s another brush at her knee, and she opens her eyes. The pleasant feeling of the memory evaporates as she finds herself back in the helicopter. Michael is leaned against the wall, eyes closed. Her father is dead and strapped to a gurney opposite her.

  Bodil is dead, too, but she’s no longer strapped down—not completely, at least. Somehow, she’s managed to push herself sideways just enough to escape one of the shoulder straps.

  For the longest second, Josefine can do nothing but stare at the heavy, dead woman hanging off the side of the gurney, her only-partly-working right arm groping at Josefine’s leg, the fat, wrinkly fingers with those thick, yellow nails typical of smokers brushing her knee a third time, scraping at the fabric.

  Then, Josefine’s brain finally kickstarts, and she sits upright with a jerk and a gasp, pulling back her legs. There’s only enough room to create a few more inches of distance between her and Bodil’s flailing hand, and Josefine moving back only seems to make Bodil more eager to reach her: she leans farther out, twists and pushes against the straps. The way she’s hanging, it looks like her entire torso might slip free at any moment.

  “Michael!” Josefine calls out, reaching over and tapping his shoulder hard. “Michael, wake up!”

  Michael jerks awake. “What? What’s happening?” Then, seeing Bodil: “Oh, Christ! Steen! Steen, we got a problem back here!”

  The pilot twists in his seat to look over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  “Move away from her!” Michael shouts at Josefine as Bodil edges a little more to the side, her reach growing a couple of inches longer.

  “I can’t!” Josefine shouts back, fumbling to unbuckle her seat belt and get to her feet at the same time but succeeding in neither.

  “The fuck are you doing back there?” the pilot shouts.

  “One of them is trying to get free!”

  “Fuck me! I thought you said they were secured?”

  “Apparently not!” Michael shouts, unbuckling. “She must have twisted out of the strap due to her dislocated shoulder.”

  “Well, get her back on that fucking gurney!”

  Michael works quickly to get the top half of his suit zipped back up and the gloves on. “I’ll try, but you might have to land!”

  Josefine is squeezing up against the back of her seat, her fingers still working the belt buckle, which isn’t like the ones in cars. Bodil’s hand is dangerously close now, and her upper body is dangling in free air, the only thing keeping her from falling to the floor being the waist stra
p. The way Bodil is hanging looks extremely painful, her hip twisted almost ninety degrees, while carrying all the weight of the upper body. It doesn’t seem to bother her at all, though.

  Finally, Josefine hears the click from the buckle, and she scrambles to her feet, pushing past the seat and reaching relative safety at the farther corner of the passenger area.

  “What’s going on?” the pilot demands, turning in his seat. “You got her secured?”

  “Not yet,” Michael answers. He has managed to get all the protective gear on now, except for the mask. He’s about to put it on, when there’s a loud, crunchy snap.

  Josefine can’t immediately tell where the sound came from, but then Bodil flops sideways and slips out of the straps completely, landing clumsily on the floor.

  Josefine hears herself scream and Michael shout at the same time, and when Bodil begins getting to her feet, Josefine realizes what made the sound: it was some large bone in Bodil’s body—the hip, most likely—giving in to the pressure and cracking in half. As the heavy lady makes it up on all fours, her whole lower body seems to buckle at the waist, making her look like someone going limp on one side.

  “Christ!” Michael shouts. “She’s free!”

  It’s not completely true, though, as Bodil’s legs are still entangled in the now loose straps, hindering her from moving forwards.

  The pilot turns his head and looks back, then shouts: “Get her tied up, will you!”

  “I’m trying!” Michael replies, approaching the woman and grabbing her before she can get to her feet. He tries to lift her back up onto the gurney, but she’s clearly too heavy, and she’s also trying to grab him, which doesn’t seem to make the task easier, her fingers clawing at the suit.

  Michael lets go of her with a grunt, and Bodil slumps to the floor with a thud.

  “I can’t do it! She’s too heavy!”

  “Use the fucking wire!” the pilot roars.

  “What wire?”

  Josefine turns her head and realizes she’s staring right at metal wire with a hook and a strap-arrangement at the end, protruding from a box on the wall, apparently meant for picking up stuff from the ground while the helicopter is airborne.

  She grabs it and yanks it hard, pulling out at least ten feet. “Michael!” she shouts, before realizing he’s already looking at her. “Here!”

  She throws the end of the wire clumsily at him, and he catches it.

  Bodil has gotten halfway to her feet and now lunges at him in a crooked but very eager thrust, finally slipping out of the straps completely. Michael manages in the last second to thrust the wire out in front of himself, catching Bodil under her fat chin and forcing her head backwards. He deftly maneuvers around her by climbing over the gurney and uses the wire to pull her back before she can turn around. She stumbles and falls to her knees, hissing and moaning angrily.

  “That’s it, I’m putting her down, hold on!” the pilot shouts.

  “No, wait!” Michael objects, but too late.

  Josefine feels a strong sinking sensation in her stomach as the helicopter drops suddenly. The abrupt change in gravity causes Michael—who had finally gained the upper hand over Bodil—to lose balance and stumble backwards, his back hitting the pilot’s seat, his arm reeling for something to grab hold of.

  What he finds is the head of the thing that used to be Josefine’s father. And the thing doesn’t hesitate, but immediately bites down hard on the gloved hand.

  Michael gives off a roar of surprise while yanking his hand back, losing the glove, which the thing is still tearing at like a furious dog. Michael stares at his bare hand, eyes wide, while turning it over.

  Josefine can’t see any blood on it, and apparently neither can Michael, because he gives off a brief sigh of relief, just as Bodil—who has managed to turn around despite being entangled in the wire—lunges for his legs.

  “Lookout!” Josefine screams.

  Michael almost manages to dodge the attack. Bodil catches him around the waist like a rugby player, forcing him backwards while biting at his groin and sliding down his legs.

  “Get off me!” he roars, pounding away on the top of Bodil’s head with his still-gloved left hand. The punches seem to do little damage and only cause Bodil a slight inconvenience, as she keeps biting down on the fabric of his suit, trying to tear through it and get to his skin underneath.

  She’s on her knees now, forcing Michael to back up, pinning him in the narrow space between the pilot’s seat and the other gurney where the thing that was Josefine’s father is twisting eagerly, craning its neck and clawing at the air in a futile attempt to reach Michael, who’s less than ten inches away.

  Then, a terrifying sound rips through the raucous: fabric tearing open.

  “No, no, no!” Michael roars.

  He has no choice but to use both hands, so he grabs Bodil’s heavy jaw and pushes her head backward at what looks to be a severely painful angle. Between her teeth is a large piece of his suit, and Josefine gets a glimpse of the hole right at his navel-area, revealing his blue T-shirt and part of the bare skin. There’s a clearly visible red mark formed like two half-moons facing each other where Bodil’s teeth has pinched the skin.

  “Help me!” he roars. “She bit me! She fucking bit me!”

  Finally, Josefine wakes up from her stupor and is able to move. She looks down and sees the wire, which is still halfway wrapped around Bodil’s neck and chest like a seat belt.

  Josefine bends down and grabs it, then yanks it hard.

  Bodil is jerked backwards, tips over onto her back, both her knees twisting to max capacity. Her fingers are still holding onto Michael’s suit, but he manages to rip himself free and thrust himself to the side, grabbling for something in a box.

  “Where is it? Where’s the damn methanol?”

  Josefine has enough to do with her tug-of-war with Bodil, who’s pulling sideways now in order to reach Michael, the only thing holding her back being the wire.

  Michael hardly notices; he’s found a plastic bottle and is now pouring the content—a clear, jell-like liquid—onto his stomach, rubbing it in frantically.

  Josefine stares at him for a second, hardly recognizing the calm, assertive doctor she had a conversation with just minutes ago. Now, he looks more like a wild animal, his eyes wide, foam at the corner of his mouth.

  “She didn’t pierce the skin, she didn’t pierce the skin,” he chants in a shrill voice, rubbing away at the bite mark on his stomach.

  “I can’t hold her!” Josefine cries out as Bodil makes another sideways thrash and lunges for Michael.

  He screams, drops the bottle and climbs backwards, kicking his legs blindly as he squeezes himself onto the passenger’s seat.

  “The hell are you doing?” the pilot shouts, staring from Michael to the back of the helicopter. “Go back there and tie her up!”

  “I can’t! She came this close to biting me! Get us down to the ground!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Bodil slips out of the wire and grabs Michael’s leg, which is still kicking the air. She tears off the shoe with sudden determination and sinks her teeth into Michael’s bared ankle.

  He screams again, even more high-pitched, and the pilot shouts something as Michael grabs his arm in a desperate attempt to get his help, causing the helicopter to swerve violently. The sudden movement makes the second gurney—the one holding the thing that used to be Josefine’s father—to buckle two of its legs and flop to a forty-five-degree angle. If the thing on it hadn’t been secured by the straps, it would’ve tumbled to the floor.

  Josefine is suddenly thrown into a weird detached state where she sees everything from behind her own eyes and in slow motion: Michael, scrambling to get Bodil off his leg, the pilot, fighting to keep the helicopter level, the thing on the gurney, writhing to get free and join the party, the tops of trees passing by out the windows.

  And Josefine herself, watching everything from the back of the helicopter. And as she does, a thoug
ht comes to her, very clear and concise: We’re going to crash now. This is how I die.

  And amazingly, she’s actually kind of okay with it. At least this way, it’ll be fast. She won’t have to grow old and get an awful disease like Alzheimer’s and slowly wither away. Most of all, she won’t have to live in a world without her dad.

  Then the thing still strapped to the tilted gurney turns it head and hisses at her, and for some strange reason, she’s thrown back into the memory and she actually hears her father’s voice in her head, hears him uttering the words he told her that very first day in the facility: “It’s always up to you, Josie. No matter how bad things turn, you decide how you handle it. Even if that’s the only thing left for you to control, no one can take that away from you.”

  “You’re right, Daddy,” Josefine breathes, and the words are drowned out by the noise and the shouting.

  She climbs back into her seat, grabs the belt and buckles it.

  Then, half a second later, the helicopter meets the ground.

  FIFTEEN

  A ton of different scenarios fly through Mille’s mind as she runs down the staircase, closely followed by Iver.

  Somehow, Torben got out. The first thing Mille considers is that her mother left her post and someone came by and opened the door.

  Or maybe Torben managed to call up someone in the neighboring cabins and convince them to open the door.

  He could also have gotten out if the barricade had failed. If he had simply kept at it and pulled at the door hard enough, the extension cord or the handle might have given way.

  Or maybe he simply smashed the door, put his boot right through it.

  The possibilities are plenty. But for some reason, Mille’s imagination refuses to go to the most likely one. In fact, she doesn’t even consider it until they reach the hallway.

  She stops abruptly a few doors away, almost causing Iver to bump into her. She stares at the trolley and the cord hanging from it like a dead snake. She looks at the wide-open door which has no marks or other signs of damage.

  A woman dressed from top to bottom in a light-blue spacesuit and wearing a face mask comes out of the cabin, talking on a radio in a high-pitched voice. “Well, I don’t care! You tell them to lock down the entire deck if that’s what they need to do to find this g—” She stops talking the minute she sees Mille and Iver staring back at her. “We have a situation here,” she says in what should probably have been a reassuring tone. “Please return to your cabins and stay there.”